Bengaluru Cops seek star rating from those dropping into police stations

Rajiv Kalkod / TNN / Updated: Dec 19, 2022, 06:05 IST

Text Size

Small
Medium
Large

Rating movies and restaurants is old. Bengaluru's southeast division police are seeking opinion from visitors to its 18 police stations on how they are being treated and served.

Bengaluru Cops seek star rating from those dropping into police stations

Visitors are being asked to answer as many as 12 questions, including on the behaviour of police personnel and whether anyone sought money from them

BENGALURU: Rating movies and restaurants is old. Bengaluru's southeast division police are seeking opinion from visitors to its 18 police stations on how they are being treated and served.
"People coming to stations sometimes complain about police refusing to file FIRs, demanding money, behaving rudely with them and so on. To deal with such complaints, we decided to take feedback from the visitors," DCP (southest) CK Baba told TOI.

Cops seek star rating from those dropping into police stations

A QR code has been installed at the stations and visitors are requested to scan it using their mobile phones and submit their comments, complaints or grievances.Visitors are also requested to rate their experience on visiting the station, with five stars being for 'best experience'. They need to answer 12 questions, including on the behaviour of police personnel, whether anyone demanded money or if anyone refused to register an FIR.

During the first 18 days of the programme (up to Saturday), as many as 1,949 visitors gave their opinion by scanning the QR code. Of these, 1,293 gave five-star rating for their experience at the station. The rest included 400 (20%) who gave four stars, 39 three, 10 two, and 20 one. However, no visitor complained of demand for bribe or refusal to register an FIR.

TIMES VIEW

Efforts from a section of Bengaluru police to seek public feedback on their functioning is certainly the first step in giving guardians of the law a people-friendly makeover. But if this endeavour is to succeed, police personnel must act on public opinion and put in place follow-up measures to address shortcomings. While this initiative should be expanded to include all stations in the city, the brass needs to do more, including proactively cracking down on indiscipline and misconduct, to address the deficit of trust, at least in the eyes of members of the public, in the department.

Begur police station topped the chart with 201 five-star ratings, followed by Mico Layout (195) and cybercrime police station (185).
Madiwala, Suddaguntepalya, and Tilaknagar were among the stations to receive most single stars. Baba said the visitors appeared to be unhappy as police did not file FIR over legal issues such as civil disputes or non-cognizable cases. Also, some visitors were unhappy that police were rude to them. "We will sort out these issues at the earliest," he said.

End of Article